Remembrance
by ladyanaconda
Summary: Red makes an altar for Miyuki. Seems dumb, right? It's not like she can even hear him... can she? Day of the Dead request for Invader Johnny.


**Day of the Dead**

* * *

"My Tallest-"

Red glanced at the electric clock on the wall, marking 32:00 Irk time."Let me guess: incoming transmission from planet Earth."

"Uhh… Yes, sir." Red and Purple exchanged frustrated glances. Zim always called them at this hour every day for his 'progress reports.' Oh, well. The sooner they dealt with this, the sooner they could go back to snacking.

"Patch it through." As Zim's living room appeared on the screen. They noted it was decorated with lots of orange-yellow flowers of some sort, and there were lots of muffin pictures on top of clothed tables.

"_Greetings, my Tallest_!" Zim announced, waving his arm happily.

"Zim, why are you... Painted?" Purple inquired upon noticing Zim's face was white, the area around his eyes was painted black, and there were straight lines drawn in his lips.

"T_hat's why I called you, sirs! I have recently discovered a new hyooman holiday!_"

"Another one? How many holidays do those hyoomans have, anyway?" Red inquired, not out of interest, but rather because he's never heard of a species that had over 30 significant holidays over dumb stuff.

"Does it have snacks?" Purple added, munching on a donut.

"_It does involve food, but it's not eaten._" Most of the crew inside the bridge murmured amongst themselves. Food not meant to be eaten? Such a thing is inconceivable for the Irken race, as their health depends on constant snacking rounds to keep their sugar levels stable.

"What? That's dumb! Snacks are made for eating! That's why they are snacks!"

"I agree with him. Why can't you eat the food?" Zim chuckled nervously at Red's question.

"_It's a funny story, my Tallest. You see, it all started with me going to visit my Gaz-demon…_"

**XOXOXO**

_"Gaz-demon, it is I, Zim! Open up!" Zim knocked incessantly on the Membrane residence's door for the past twenty minutes after he got no reply. _

_"Master, I think no one's home," GIR said innocently._

_"That can't be! Gaz-demon is always home playing with her electronic entertainment device!" Zim's knocking became more frantic. "Gaz-demon!" The door finally opened, but it wasn't her. Instead, it was a floating screen with a recording from Professor Membrane._

_"**Greetings, visitor! If the world requires my superior scientific knowledge, press number one. If you're Gaz's significant other, press number two,**" Zim rolled his eyes and pressed the corresponding button. "**Hello, Gaz's foreign boyfriend! If you're looking for Gaz, the family has gone to the cemetery to do something essential! You're welcome to join us if you'd like!**" Zim wasn't sure if he wanted to go to the hyooman's corpse dumpster at night, but then he figured Gaz-demon would wish to his company in such a scary place. _

_The cemetery was mostly empty, but Zim saw a few people decorating graves with flowers, candles, and photos. Was this some halloweenie party? He finally found Gaz alongside the Dib-beast on one of the tombs, which was also cheerily decorated. Both were on their knees, staring at the framed picture. Zim thoughtlessly stepped forward and called out._

_"Gaz-demon, there you are! What are you doing here instead of waiting for Zim?!" _

_"Not now, Zim," Gaz said. Zim blinked. Her voice lacked the usual toughness and instead sounded… sad. _

_"Who are you, and what have you done with my Gaz-demon?!" Zim pouted when he got no reply. "What are you even doing?!"_

_"It's Day of the Dead, space-boy. So if you don't mind-"_

_"Day of the Dead? What is that, a sort of Zombie invasion?! GIR, protect your master!" The robot was too busy sniffing at the strange bread and candies on the grave. _

_"GIR, don't you dare touch that," Gaz said with a mild frown. Oddly, the little robot obeyed. _

_"It's not a zombie invasion, Zim. It's a celebration of the dead-"_

_"Why would you celebrate a corpse, Dib-beast? It's nothing but rotten flesh with worms!" _

_"It isn't for the corpse itself; it's for who the person was in life and what she meant to everyone around them. In a way, they are still with us as long as we remember them." Just then, Professor Membrane appeared, carrying a big pot. _

_"Okay, kids, I brought the pozole. Ah, Gaz's boyfriend! So you decided to join us! If you'd be so kind as to lend me a hand, I'd be very grateful!" Zim would usually refuse to help anyone, but this strange hyooman concept has piqued his interest. Perhaps he could use it in the newer scheme for dominating the hyoomans. Besides, Gaz-demon's male parental unit was an exception to the rule. _

_"So, Gaz-demon's male parental unit, what is the purpose of bringing food to a grave?"_

_"I'm glad you asked, young man! Our family originally came from Mexico until we moved here to the United States, but celebrating Day of the Dead is a way to keep our Mexican roots. This food is offered to the deceased, while the candles and flowers light their way through the dark path from the land of the dead to our own." Zim was surprised that this man who didn't believe in aliens believed in something as primitive as an afterlife. _

_"Okay... And who are you celebrating?"_

_"Mom," Gaz said. He couldn't believe it; she was sad! His Gaz demon is never sad! She was pointing at a picture of a pale, tall woman with brown eyes and a similar shade of purple hair to her. Guess that's where Gaz-demon got her looks from. This explains why he had never seen her female parental unit. _

_"She's pretty…" Zim said awkwardly, now knowing what else to say. _

**XOXOXO**

"_And that's how I learned about this holiday, sirs!_"

"Okay… So that's why all your living room is like that?" Purple pointed at the decorations around the living room.

"GIR _has decided to make an altar for his muffin; please do ignore him! I have no time for such superficial celebrations_!"

"And what about your face?"

"_My… face?_" Zim looked offscreen, probably a mirror. "GIR_, what have you done to my beautiful face?!_"

"_You look like a calaca, master!_"

"GIR!" Purple saw this as the cue to cut off the transmission, especially when Zim started chasing the defective robot around the living room.

"Well, you look busy, Zim, so we'll leave you to… discipline your _SIR_." He made a motion to one of the technicians to end the transmission. "Those hyoomans! How dare they waste snacks like that?! It's stupid to think a dead person is going to eat it, am I right?" He was met with nods and murmurs of agreement from everyone inside the bridge, except for one person. "Red?" His co-Tallest had a vacant expression on his face. "Hello? Irk to Red!"

"Huh?" Red blinked and turned his head to his co-ruler. "Did you say something?"

"I was saying that wasting precious snacks on superstition is stupid."

"Right, right… Then again, hyoomans are stupid, so naturally, they'd have equally stupid beliefs. There's no way our superior race would throw away snacks in such a dumb manner!"

* * *

_I can't believe I'm throwing snacks away in such a dumb manner._

Red stared at his poor excuse of an 'altar.' A bunch of different flowers, a few electric candles he purchased from _Callnowia_, and a tablecloth that adorned a tea table placed on a corner of his chambers. The info he found on the internet regarding the altar of the dead as complicated, so he decided to make a simple one instead of the intricate ones hyoomans did. Besides, he wanted to keep this a secret from everyone, especially Purple. How would they react if they saw one of the Tallest wasting precious food on holiday from an inferior race?

Table, candles, flowers; check. Now there were only two essential items left: a picture and favorite food of the deceased. This was the part he was dreading the most.

With a trembling hand, Red opened one of the drawers in his bedside table and took a framed photo out of it. It was a photo of Tallest Miyuki, or 'simply Miyuki,' as she asked him to call her. She hadn't wanted her new position to create a rift between them and insisted he still calls her Miyuki when they were alone. He remembered this picture, taken the day before the day of her coronation. It was the last time they could spend time together as true equals.

Red found himself stroking her cheek tenderly. It was the first time he looked at one of her pictures in a long time. He put them all away ever since she died; he couldn't bear looking at them and being reminded that she was gone. Despite that, he had never forgotten what she looked like. Her lovely azure eyes, a rare trait in their race, were so captivating that he always imagined himself lost at sea whenever he looked at them.

For the favorite dish, he put two things: caramel nachos, her favorite snack, and the rolls she had baked for him once, back before her appointment as Tallest. It had been a parting gift for when he went on his first mission as an Invader. He usually never wasted them as they were limited, but he guessed it wouldn't hurt to put it this time. It's not like someone would grab them, right?

Red stared at his creation awkwardly after putting the snacks on top of the table. What now? Does he talk to the picture or something? That was stupid. It's not like she could hear him. In fact, Irkens don't even believe in an afterlife. When their organic bodies perish, the _PAK_ is retrieved and downloaded into the Control Brain interface before the _PAK_ is passed on to new smeets. In a way, you could say Irkens are 'reborn.' Inferior races, on the other hand, have this 'need' to believe that their deceased loved ones were waiting for them in some imaginary realm for the dead. And that they'd eventually see them again. And yet, Red sort of knew the feeling; he wished Miyuki could hear him sometimes. It certainly would make her absence less painful. Oh, what the heck. It's not like anyone would listen to him, right?

"Hey there, Miyuki…" Red began awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. "How are you…?" No, those kinds of questions were stupid. She couldn't reply. "I know it's been a while since I saw you, right? Hehe…" Damn it, this is even harder than he thought. "You know? I think that you'd be laughing at me right now if you saw me. I mean, come on, I'm talking to a picture."

And so he found himself in a one-sided conversation. At first, it felt awkward, and he'd stutter every now and then. Still, as time went on, he found himself speaking fluently as if he were talking to Miyuki herself, even looking at the picture as he spoke. He mostly spoke of daily life things such as the discovered snacks and the progress of Operation Impending Doom 2. He also mentioned all the things Zim kept doing to screw everything up even from miles away.

"...We were stuck in that damn Florpus hole for a week! A week! We got burned, beaten, almost devoured, electrified, I don't even want to remember what else. It took us months to get the Massive and the Armada running again! Not to mention that we haven't recovered from all the losses, and Purple doesn't want anything to do with chopsticks. In fact, he had all the foods that require chopsticks removed from the Massive." Red rubbed his temple. "That defective is going to be the death of us one of these days." He wasn't sure if Miyuki would have laughed or placed a hand on his shoulder.

"You know, sometimes I still wonder what you saw in Zim in the first place. If it weren't for him, you would still be here with us, with me.."

_And you and Purple wouldn't be Tallest_; he imagined she'd say.

"Yeah, I know, even though I hate it… Even if it were true, I would never forgive Zim for what he did to you… It was hard to… Ever since y-you..." His voice quivered as the wound reopened again. "I miss you, Miyuki… I wouldn't have minded having stayed an Invader if it meant that you'd still be alive. I was… I never got to ask you something significant. And I know it's probably too late by now, but…" Red took a deep breath and rubbed his arms as he spoke the words he had never gotten to tell her. "...Will you marry me?"

Of course, he was met with silence. How stupid. Why bring that up now when she couldn't even hear him? Red couldn't bear it any longer and headed towards the door. Before he could, he felt a warm sensation on his right cheek.

_I love you, Red._

That voice…! Red looked around frantically but found no one. He froze, his lekku twitching frantically as he heard a familiar voice. Was it his imagination, or did he just hear…? No, it must be a hallucination. It has to be! But the warm sensation on his cheek was still there. How could it be when the AC was at its coldest? His fingers tentatively touched it, but his skin was cold. Why did he feel it warm then? And just on the same spot where Miyuki would stroke his cheek. Damn it, this was so confusing. When he turned around to take one of the snacks he had placed on the mini-altar, his squeedly-spooch sank.

They were gone.

Red rubbed his eyes a few times and touched the table in case he was hallucinating, and the snacks were still there, but to his utter shock, they weren't there. He checked his camera feed to see who had taken them, only to find that nobody had entered his chambers. The snacks had just… vanished, leaving behind only empty plates.

The warmth on his cheek soon vanished, but it left the sensation of a tender touch on his skin, just like she used to do before… Eventually, he just sat down on the edge of his bed and lowered his gaze, utterly confused and perplexed. How did this happen? How could the snacks have vanished without a trace? What was that voice he just heard? He glanced at Miyuki's picture. Could it be…? Had she really...? How is it possible? He might have kept thinking it over and get nowhere for days, trying and failing to get a logical explanation for this.

However, in the end, he decided not to. As Miyuki would sometimes say, some things simply cannot be explained. One must just have… faith. He had secretly scoffed that phrase back then, but after this, he finally understood the meaning. With a sad smile, he picked up Miyuki's photo and held it close to his chest.

"I love you too, Miyuki."


End file.
